Showing posts with label train. Show all posts
Showing posts with label train. Show all posts
05 June, 2025
13 January, 2012
Sleeping in trains
Today I held a seminar in a place quite a few hours away. I had to get up a 4:30 am to be there by 9:00. Taxi, train, another train, street car, and then taxi... this is the sequence of transportation I had to take to get there (and then again coming back).
I was sitting in the taxi or train anywhere from 5 minutes to 50 minutes at a time. As you can imagine, this was not enough time to unpack a picnic or dive into a new book. Instead, I dosed away the hours in-and-out of sleep, watched the various commuters get on and off the train every few stations, and listened to bits and pieces of my current audio book.
I was going to write a post about this book, The Once and Future King, but since I probably will not get around to it, here are the absolute highlights:
I was sitting in the taxi or train anywhere from 5 minutes to 50 minutes at a time. As you can imagine, this was not enough time to unpack a picnic or dive into a new book. Instead, I dosed away the hours in-and-out of sleep, watched the various commuters get on and off the train every few stations, and listened to bits and pieces of my current audio book.
I was going to write a post about this book, The Once and Future King, but since I probably will not get around to it, here are the absolute highlights:
- it is 33 hours and 3 minutes long
- the reader,
22 February, 2011
Two young men
Witnessed on a train trip to Berlin this last weekend:
Two young men dressed in black hoodies share a two-person seat. They sit with their backs to each other. One is facing the window, while the other hangs his legs over the armrest into the aisle. They talk to each other over the clatter of the train and the blare of the music coming from their mp3 players. The conversation flows though they never once look over their shoulders at the other.
Two young men dressed in black hoodies share a two-person seat. They sit with their backs to each other. One is facing the window, while the other hangs his legs over the armrest into the aisle. They talk to each other over the clatter of the train and the blare of the music coming from their mp3 players. The conversation flows though they never once look over their shoulders at the other.
02 July, 2009
Eyes - Postcards IV
He sits in the night train travelling northbound, passing through a dark countryside spotted with neon-lighted train stations, through places he has never heard of, in languages he doesn’t understand. Alone in the train carriage, he stares outward towards the people he has yet to meet, to a life he’s yearning to find.
15 December, 2008
Heading Home
It's been a wonderful, if not a veryvery busy time in Berlin. One friend wrote to say I seem to "jump into a train" to Berlin in much the manner she decides to drive down to her supermarket. This observation reflects more my lightness of spirit and willingness to come here, but not the physical trails of getting here. Leaving work and, more importantly, family is far less easy.
What an trip it has been, will have to write about it at a later point in time.
What an trip it has been, will have to write about it at a later point in time.
14 December, 2008
Just Doesn't Make Sense
While travelling to Berlin the other day, I noticed the same puzzling situation twice. What happen was the following... a woman rush is in a terrible rush to catch her train. She runs along the upper level of the train station, pulling a carry on piece of luggage on its wheels. The moment she gets on the escalator, she stops and stands and waits for the escalator to move down to the lower level at a snails pace. This doesn't make sense. There is no sign that says "Don't move on the escalator". Doesn't that seem strange to you?
28 November, 2008
DB Holiday Cheer
I go to the train station to buy some tickets for two up-and-coming trips to Berlin. Late Friday afternoon. Crowded. One DB employee is trying to issue an old woman her tickets for her grandson’s visit over Christmas. She insists on paying for him to come up to visit her, while his parents insist on paying for the return trip. The old woman knows her grandson had a DB card (discount card), but she doesn’t know if the discount is 25% or 50%.
The DB employee patiently suggests that the woman should find out whether it is 25% or 50% before purchasing the ticket. The woman is obviously distraught at the prospect of having to come back again.
The DB employee sees the old woman’s disappointment and offers to let her call her daughter. She asks the woman for the telephone number. She doesn’t remember. Then... how about the name and address? The old woman says “Meyer” (like Smith) and the city, but she doesn’t know the street name. The DB employee checks an online telephone book on her computer for the name. She blinks twice. Then puts on a brave face, “Oh, there are a lot of Meyers in Fulda. Why don’t we start at the top. Does xxxx Ave. sound familiar?”
They were still at it, after I purchased my ticket and I am leaving. I’m a real Scrooge when it comes to Christmas. I’m glad the DB employee is not.
The DB employee patiently suggests that the woman should find out whether it is 25% or 50% before purchasing the ticket. The woman is obviously distraught at the prospect of having to come back again.
The DB employee sees the old woman’s disappointment and offers to let her call her daughter. She asks the woman for the telephone number. She doesn’t remember. Then... how about the name and address? The old woman says “Meyer” (like Smith) and the city, but she doesn’t know the street name. The DB employee checks an online telephone book on her computer for the name. She blinks twice. Then puts on a brave face, “Oh, there are a lot of Meyers in Fulda. Why don’t we start at the top. Does xxxx Ave. sound familiar?”
They were still at it, after I purchased my ticket and I am leaving. I’m a real Scrooge when it comes to Christmas. I’m glad the DB employee is not.
22 November, 2008
Postcard From Past Lives: Deutsch Post
Dear Deutsche Post,
Oh ye of little faith! Just because I lavish a bit of praise on the Deutsche Bahn (German train company), doesn’t mean that my affections and appreciation of your services have waned. In the 26 years since I moved to Germany, you still can deliver a letter anywhere in Germany in a-day’s-time or two at the latest. Not only do you do your normal duties thoroughly, but you also have little German elves working in the backrooms individually handling the following situations:
Wrong or Incomplete Addressed
Taking letters addressed to me with the wrong house number, or “near the electrician shop” written in place of the street name, or my name/ city/Germany written on the envelope, and asking your elves to write my proper address per hand for the postwoman to deliver with only one-day’s delay.
Broken Package Shelter
A package arrives per sea freight with the carton split at all seams and the package contents no longer contained. Your elves gather up the contents, send them to a broken package shelter in Frankfurt, where they are stored in the interim. They write to me with the news of this unfortunate manhandling (which obviously is not their own, but some bully Scotsman in the Orkney Islands post office who didn’t give a hoot) and then send me the remains in a new carton with apologies for any inconvenience. At. No. Extra. Cost.
Ramped Vandalism
A vacuum-packed plastic envelope arrives with the burnt remains of a letter I wrote to my mother and sent off to Grenada the week before. My return address, written at the top left-hand corner of the letter, is the only recognisable part of the charred remains. Someone had set off fireworks in the post box during New Year’s Eve celebration, and your elves wanted me to know that the letter wouldn’t arrive.
So, please stop sulking and feeling neglected. You are my stalwart friend and I love you to bits and always will.
Your faithful friend,
Ye who believes in elves
01 October, 2008
Seen from the Train
A large car wash and garage called Auto-Kneipe, or Car Bar.
(Knowing the way some of the fellows I work with think about their cars, I can see that the image of going off with their cars for a drink might hold some appeal.)
In the one strip of sunlight on the journey down to Berlin, there is a harvested field, green with a light powdering of grass, spotted with sea green/blue plastic-covered hay rolls. The herd of cows in the foreground are dwarfed by the size of the hay bails. It looks like a painting of rural modernism for the Tate Museum. As the train rides past, a fleet of birds fly up high, adding a poetic accent to the surrealistic landscape.
A tennis club’s clay courts lie lonely on this late autumn afternoon. Fallen autumn leaves are sprinkled over their wet surfaces. There is so much rainwater on the courts that the clay shines an intense orange-red hue.
(Knowing the way some of the fellows I work with think about their cars, I can see that the image of going off with their cars for a drink might hold some appeal.)
In the one strip of sunlight on the journey down to Berlin, there is a harvested field, green with a light powdering of grass, spotted with sea green/blue plastic-covered hay rolls. The herd of cows in the foreground are dwarfed by the size of the hay bails. It looks like a painting of rural modernism for the Tate Museum. As the train rides past, a fleet of birds fly up high, adding a poetic accent to the surrealistic landscape.
A tennis club’s clay courts lie lonely on this late autumn afternoon. Fallen autumn leaves are sprinkled over their wet surfaces. There is so much rainwater on the courts that the clay shines an intense orange-red hue.
11 September, 2008
Trip to Berlin
Yesterday, for the first time in perhaps 20 years, I had a train department completely to my own. Luxury. The late summer countryside going by. No distracting sounds, smells, or vibrations coming from fellow passengers. Just me and my lonesome. Luxury.
Staying with friends of a friend who live in Charlottenburg,. This is one of the many charming neighbourhoods of this marvelous city. Though, I believe Charlottenburg is perhaps the most charming neighbourhood of them all. And my hostess and host and their two hosting boys are absolutely charming too.
The sun is shining. I am sitting in a café. I've just ordered breakfast. I am in heaven.
Staying with friends of a friend who live in Charlottenburg,. This is one of the many charming neighbourhoods of this marvelous city. Though, I believe Charlottenburg is perhaps the most charming neighbourhood of them all. And my hostess and host and their two hosting boys are absolutely charming too.
The sun is shining. I am sitting in a café. I've just ordered breakfast. I am in heaven.
28 December, 2007
On This Dark Winter Morning
On this dark winter morning, I drink a cup of tea while looking out at the bare city street. Occasionally, a bus passes: lit up in side, with only a few passengers huddled down in the corners.
Now is time. To pack my bag for a day trip up north. To shower. To leave with an empty stomach on this full adventure.
30 September, 2007
My Travel Pal, Nerida
When I was in my late teens, early twenties, I used to come over to Germany every year to visit my ballet friend, Nerida. During the first few years, Nerida was dancing at a state theatre in southern Germany. Then she moved to the German/Swiss border, on the Bodensee, to live with some actors in a farmhouse commune. (The actors performed renaissance comedy as street performers throughout the region.)
On numerous occasions, Nerida and I travelled around on Eurail passes. We travelled up-an-down Germany, uo to Norway, Sweden, over to England, and Whales: if my memory serves right. These trips were always done on a shoestring budget. There was no room for financial error. We didn’t have credit cards, nest eggs, or a disaster fund. What we had, was what we had.
But, of course, we were constantly making mistakes and landing in tight situations. Such as, arriving in London with a long list of “open invitations”, only to discover everyone was off on vacation at the time. Thus we had to forego meals to rent the sleaziest of hotel rooms in the northern outskirts of London. There were no locks on the hotel room doors. Our friendship survived this and many such situations.
There can be no two personalities more different than Nerida and mine. Where she enjoys rigorous immersion in all art and cultural events, I prefer to spend my days on a park bench, watching people walk by. She is industrious. I am lazy. She is meticulous. I am sloppy. But, we are friends. We are best friends.
These journeys taught me a very lesson in life: it is best to travel with a very close friend, or a total stranger. Anything in between is a recipe for disaster.
You have to love your travel companion dearly, so that you can (try to) overlook all their personality quirks. Or, as second choice, travel with a stranger and spend the trip getting to know them. A half-friend, a passing acquaintance, isn’t going to cut the grade.
Nerida and I witnessed other fellow travellers’ bitching, complaining, and whining with a sense of superiority. We shouldn’t have been so sanctimonious, for we were just lucky to get along so well with each other.
Having a travel pal who is also your best friend is one of those chicken/egg dilemmas. Are you best friends because you are travel pals? Or, is it the other way around?
What do you think?
On numerous occasions, Nerida and I travelled around on Eurail passes. We travelled up-an-down Germany, uo to Norway, Sweden, over to England, and Whales: if my memory serves right. These trips were always done on a shoestring budget. There was no room for financial error. We didn’t have credit cards, nest eggs, or a disaster fund. What we had, was what we had.
But, of course, we were constantly making mistakes and landing in tight situations. Such as, arriving in London with a long list of “open invitations”, only to discover everyone was off on vacation at the time. Thus we had to forego meals to rent the sleaziest of hotel rooms in the northern outskirts of London. There were no locks on the hotel room doors. Our friendship survived this and many such situations.
There can be no two personalities more different than Nerida and mine. Where she enjoys rigorous immersion in all art and cultural events, I prefer to spend my days on a park bench, watching people walk by. She is industrious. I am lazy. She is meticulous. I am sloppy. But, we are friends. We are best friends.
These journeys taught me a very lesson in life: it is best to travel with a very close friend, or a total stranger. Anything in between is a recipe for disaster.
You have to love your travel companion dearly, so that you can (try to) overlook all their personality quirks. Or, as second choice, travel with a stranger and spend the trip getting to know them. A half-friend, a passing acquaintance, isn’t going to cut the grade.
Nerida and I witnessed other fellow travellers’ bitching, complaining, and whining with a sense of superiority. We shouldn’t have been so sanctimonious, for we were just lucky to get along so well with each other.
Having a travel pal who is also your best friend is one of those chicken/egg dilemmas. Are you best friends because you are travel pals? Or, is it the other way around?
What do you think?
09 August, 2007
Home Safe and Sound
I am back at home from my four-day whirlwind tour of southern Germany. My four-day tea party as I fondly refer to it. The weather was fabulous, which was a spirit booster after the last six weeks of rain and grey skies.
Here is a slide show of some of the photos I took while in Freising and the surrounding area. The two photos with people sitting on picnic tables were taken in a Biergarten (beer garden).
By the time I arrived in Munich to visit with an old friend I shared an apartment with in university (Waterloo, Ontario), my jaw was loose, some long-forgotten memories started bubbling up to the surface, and so we were in for a marathon talking session.
This is a photo of my last cup of tea in Munich. I love the fact that my friend is wearing a dress she bought way-back-when; the time she visited me and my parents in Grenada. The dress was made at another friend of mine’s shop in St. George’s. The colours are still looking great after twenty years.
Finally, I made a pit stop in Erlangen, my home away from home. This is not because I once lived in Erlangen, but because of a certain family who always make guests feel so much at home.
My beloved Deutsches Bundesbahn (DB) was to go on strike yesterday, but they put it off until today, so I made it home safe and sound. Some would say this has nothing to do with the fact that I, their poster girl, happened to be traveling, but I know better.
Here is a slide show of some of the photos I took while in Freising and the surrounding area. The two photos with people sitting on picnic tables were taken in a Biergarten (beer garden).
By the time I arrived in Munich to visit with an old friend I shared an apartment with in university (Waterloo, Ontario), my jaw was loose, some long-forgotten memories started bubbling up to the surface, and so we were in for a marathon talking session.
04 August, 2007
I Heart the DB
My mother-in-law and I just travelled today from northern Germany to visit my brother-in-law and his lovely wife in southern Germany. Seven and a half hours by train. No delays. Brief change overs. Good service. I heart the Deutsche Bundesbahn.
Can you imagine travelling from the top of your country to the bottom in seven hours?
I raced through one of the two books I brought along for this four day journey. It was an oversight to bring only two.
This is going to be a four day tea party: Friesing, Munich, Nuremburg, and Erlangen. Originally, I thought I would spead the trip out over a week, but I am celebrating my birthday with my husband at the end of the week, so I had to do speed dial this visit.
Can you imagine travelling from the top of your country to the bottom in seven hours?
I raced through one of the two books I brought along for this four day journey. It was an oversight to bring only two.
26 May, 2007
A Complete Puzzle
In the middle of nowhere, stands an insignificant train station on the periphery of a small, possibly equally insignificant, town of Buechen. The station consists of a nondescript grey cement-walled building surrounded by a slew of railway tracks on both sides. The building has two locked doors, two closed shuttered windows, and no one has been sighted going in or out of the building the last fifteen years.
On the south side of the building there are four railway tracks, but only two of the tracks have platforms. This did not stop the station master from posting a sign bravely stating “Tracks 1-4 in --> direction”. Trains, of course, can only arrive and depart from track/platform #1 or track/platform #4. No train has ever, in the entire history of the station arrived or departed from tracks #2 or #3, because, in essence they are just tracks-passing-in-the-night between the other two tracks.
This false designation of information, makes me wonder what was the self-important train official’s motivation in pulling the wool over the eyes of the central logistic engineering bureau. Maybe the central bureau pays their station masers a salary based the number of tracks they manage.
And that’s not all. On the north side of the train station there are six railway tracks. Can you guess how they are numbered?
The first track/platform is track # 140. Yes, that’s right. And hidden behind a thick hedge, ten yards away from the end of train station, are track #40 and track #41. The other three tracks are not numbered.
For someone who worked as an engineer for twenty years and has lived in Germany for nearly twenty-five years, the Buechen train station is, and will forever remain, a complete puzzle.
On the south side of the building there are four railway tracks, but only two of the tracks have platforms. This did not stop the station master from posting a sign bravely stating “Tracks 1-4 in --> direction”. Trains, of course, can only arrive and depart from track/platform #1 or track/platform #4. No train has ever, in the entire history of the station arrived or departed from tracks #2 or #3, because, in essence they are just tracks-passing-in-the-night between the other two tracks.
This false designation of information, makes me wonder what was the self-important train official’s motivation in pulling the wool over the eyes of the central logistic engineering bureau. Maybe the central bureau pays their station masers a salary based the number of tracks they manage.
And that’s not all. On the north side of the train station there are six railway tracks. Can you guess how they are numbered?
The first track/platform is track # 140. Yes, that’s right. And hidden behind a thick hedge, ten yards away from the end of train station, are track #40 and track #41. The other three tracks are not numbered.
For someone who worked as an engineer for twenty years and has lived in Germany for nearly twenty-five years, the Buechen train station is, and will forever remain, a complete puzzle.
28 May, 2006
Long long weekend
Well, the children went off to southern Germany for five days, so Giuseppe and I had the rare opportunity to be together as a pair. What a delight, but also, boy, time goes slow when no teenagers or children are around. Thursday was a national holiday, and we had Friday off. By the time Saturday morning came around, I couldn’t believe there were another two days left to our long weekend. Time not only slowed down, I swear I could almost hear the seconds tick by languidly like an old grandfather clock.
I managed to create a collage or two, see a few movies (X-Men 3, Mirror Mask, and an old spaghetti western), go out to one of our favourite restaurants, and visit a friend in Hamburg. I picked up the children in Hamburg central train station last night.
There were a lot of policemen, drug dogs, and anti-riot shields lining the way to and from the trains, which was quite scary to have to confront, for we had to pass through a tunnel of green/black uniformed policemen and their barking dogs to get to the train platform. Though not as scary as being on the train with the drunken hooligans (the police just escort the soccer crowds to and from the trains).
A few years ago, the children and I were sitting on a train filled with a particularly awful crowd just as an unsuspecting teacher entered our department with a large group of French school children (a very multi-racial group). She told the group to spread out and find a seat but changed her mind when I told her the train was filled with drunken soccer fans. They ended up staying together in our small department. Wise choice.
I managed to create a collage or two, see a few movies (X-Men 3, Mirror Mask, and an old spaghetti western), go out to one of our favourite restaurants, and visit a friend in Hamburg. I picked up the children in Hamburg central train station last night.
There were a lot of policemen, drug dogs, and anti-riot shields lining the way to and from the trains, which was quite scary to have to confront, for we had to pass through a tunnel of green/black uniformed policemen and their barking dogs to get to the train platform. Though not as scary as being on the train with the drunken hooligans (the police just escort the soccer crowds to and from the trains).
A few years ago, the children and I were sitting on a train filled with a particularly awful crowd just as an unsuspecting teacher entered our department with a large group of French school children (a very multi-racial group). She told the group to spread out and find a seat but changed her mind when I told her the train was filled with drunken soccer fans. They ended up staying together in our small department. Wise choice.
16 February, 2006
Gal's Weekend
Off to Berlin for an extended gals' weekend away. Nothing planned! Just an inclination to enjoy, relax, laugh, eat well, look at art, sit in cafés, and people-watch.
I love travelling. Most particularly, I love travelling on fast German trains. There is something about sitting on a fancy train that makes my mind boil over with ideas.
I love travelling. Most particularly, I love travelling on fast German trains. There is something about sitting on a fancy train that makes my mind boil over with ideas.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)